Well, good morning and welcome to you.
It's good to see everybody this morning.
I don't know if we have any guests, but if we do, welcome to
New Life Community Church. If you don't know me, my name is
Jasper. I'm the associate pastor here,
but it looks like most people here are familiar so it is good
to be with you all. Today we're going to be
continuing through our Series in Psalms.
We've been doing this for the last few years.
During the summer will go through several different songs
as a way of learning how to To align our hearts with God's
heart. And so we're doing that again
this summer. It's a great opportunity to let
some of the other guys get up and preach and so it's always a
good time. I love doing this.
The Psalms are beautiful. And so today is no different.
If you have your Bibles turn to Psalm 33, we're going to be
reading Psalm 33 today. Now, I don't have a lot of
background for you on Psalm 33, so we're not going to waste a
lot of time with that today. Psalm 33 is a Psalm of praise,
it was a song that was written, very much with joy and adoration
for the Lord. It was not a Psalm of lament or
anything like that. This is an upbeat Happy song and
so we're going to see that in just a moment.
We don't know who the author is. The author of Psalm 33 is
unknown like many Psalms. That were not sure of the
There's a lot of speculation that that could be David and
rightly. So, but we just don't know, man.
It's not really important at this point.
What matters is what this Psalm is teaching us.
And so we're going to take a close look at this today and
just kind of dig for some some nuggets of gold in this Psalm if
you will. So if you would, if you can
stand with me and we're going to read Psalm 33 at this time,
Shout for joy in the Lord. Oh you righteous.
Praise befits. The upright, give thanks to the
Lord with the liar, make Melody to him with the harp of ten
strings. Sing to him.
A new song play skillfully on the strings with loud.
Shouts for the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is
done in faithfulness, he loves righteousness.
And Justice, the Earth is full of the steadfast.
Love of the Lord by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made.
And by the breath of his mouth, all their host, he gathers, the
Waters of the sea as a heap, he puts the deeps, and storehouses,
let all the Earth fear, the lord, let all the inhabitants of
the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke.
And it came to be, he commanded and it stood firm.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nation's to nothing.
He frustrates. The plans of the people's, the
counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart
to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God
is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen, as his Heritage, the
Lord looks down from heaven. He sees All the children of man,
from where he sits enthroned. He looks out on all the
inhabitants of the earth. He who fashioned the hearts of
them all and observes their deeds, the king is not saved by
his great Army. A warrior is not delivered by
his great strength. The war horse is a false hope
for salvation and by its great might, it cannot rescue.
Behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him all those,
who hope in his steadfast, love that he made the liver, their
soul from death, and keep them alive and famine, our soul waits
for the Lord. He is our help and our shield
for our heart is glad and him because we trust in His holy
name. Let your steadfast love O Lord
be upon us even as we hope in you.
Father, we love you and we praise you this morning.
God, we're thankful for your word.
We pray now that as we take a closer look at it that you just
Pierce our hearts with your truth.
You speak through me that you were honored and glorified
through it all. We praise you this day in Jesus
name. Amen be seated.
So we see in Psalm 33, I don't know about your Bibles, but
there's a title for it. Mine says, the steadfast love of
the Lord and right off the bat. And the first few verses, we see
reference to the Lord over and over, this got me thinking.
Have you ever thought about what the word Lord actually means?
What is a lord? What does it mean to be a lord?
What what's the qualifications for being a?
Oh Lord. What does that entail?
And so, I don't know if any of you maybe by show of hands, how
many people have seen Braveheart?
Yeah. It's like the best movie ever,
right? That's like one of my might be
my favorite movie. So, in that movie, those of you
have seen it, well no, but if you have it in that movie, no
Gibson. Plays the character William
Wallace, he's a Scotsman. And this is, you know, set way
back in the day, when England still ruled Scotland, and it's
about how Scotland gained its freedom at the time.
So, William Wallace is the good guy.
He's the, the protagonist in the movie.
The bad guy is King, Edward Longshanks and if you've seen
the movie you know that Longshanks was not a good King.
Now he was pretty good at managing Resources by far.
He was great at acquiring riches and more land and all of that
but he was a tyrant. He was an evil Wicked King that
ruled his people through fear and through a heavy hand, The
people, his subjects of England and Scotland were more like
slaves. And if you remember, I won't go
into great detail in this but in the movie he even went so far as
to Institute what's called Prima nocta.
Which is where any time a man? And a woman got married, the
local English officers had right to that woman first before her
husband, which is what leads to the entire movie.
It's just Preposterous and the people got fed up of that.
So, I digress. The point is Longshanks was not
a good King, he was an evil Tyrant that oppressed people.
So as far as being a lord, he was not a good one.
But we hear this a lot, especially back, then people
would refer to a king or a master as Lord.
They would say, what must I do for my Lord?
What would my Lord have of me today?
You see this? All in the Bible to you, see
people greet one another that way.
So Lord was always a title used and reverence for someone when
you were submitting to someone you were pledging Your
Allegiance to someone by calling them Lord.
So, that begs the question we see in a guy, like Longshanks
what looks like a bad Lord and a bad King.
So what makes a good Lord, what makes a good King, I think that
by looking at Psalm 33, we were going to get a very beautiful
picture of what makes a good Lord, and King.
And we will see that in the character of God and we all know
that when it comes down to it, that's what makes a good lord.
It's his character. It's how he rules his people.
It's how he loves his people. What kind of man is he?
And so we're going to get to see that in this song.
Today we're going to get to see who God is.
And this is all part of learning more about the Lord, so that we
can align ourselves and align our hearts with his heart.
So, Psalm 33 lays this out beautifully It starts out in
verses 1 through 3, with a call to worship, just like what we
do, every Sunday morning when we recite our call to worship, we
do that. As a way of saying, look we're
all sinners in this place. If you're a visitor here with us
today, welcome, we're here because Jesus has saved us.
He welcomes everybody here. So that's why we're here.
Let's praise together this morning.
That's our way of kind of just right out of the gate
instituting. Like we're all here for the same
purpose. None of us is better than the
The other, let's all bow before the Lord and worship today,
Psalm 33 verses 1 through 3 again, as they call to worship,
if you'll notice the very first word and the very last word in
verse 3 are, shout shout for joy in the Lord.
Oh, you righteous, who is he talking to?
He's talking to God's people. Those are the Righteous that I
think the nasb says righteous ones.
These are God's people. This is a call.
All to praise and worship the Lord.
And he's not just saying, hey, if you guys could, let's maybe
stand and sing a little song to the Lord.
Maybe Mumble a little bit of something under your breath.
Now, he's saying, Shout. Shout to the Lord sing loudly.
Get excited about it. This is a call to get pumped up
about what God's done. The verses one through three are
beautiful in this and it's calling us to use instruments,
use instruments with strings, use the harp, use the liar, use,
all these things, like whatever you can get your hands on, sing
to God. Make Melody to him, get excited.
You have reason to be. But that leads us to another
question, right? Why, why should we praise the
Lord? Why, why worship him, man?
He's God, we know that but why? And the psalmist lays out,
three, wonderful reasons to praise God.
So, if you're taking notes, you can write this down, three
reasons why, one through one through three, tell us to praise
and we're going to see why in the next verses.
And so, Number one. The first reason why we should
praise the Lord in Verses 4 through 9, we see that the Lord
is omnipotent. The Lord is omnipotent.
It looks like omnipotent. What this means is all-powerful
is all potent, is all-powerful, total power, not just a little,
not just a lot all of it. God is all powerful.
Verse 4 says, for the word of the Lord is upright, and all his
work is done in faithfulness. The word of the Lord is upright.
That means correct straight forward to the point, no flaws
in it. This is God's word.
It is. Up.
Right? And it says, by his word, he
created, we see in verses 6 through 8 9, all of that, that
God spoke the world into existence, right by the word of
the Lord, the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth,
all their hosts. Now, this isn't the only place
we read about this, right? We've seen this in other places
in scripture. A great, great example, or the
best place might be in Genesis as we've learned about this in
Sunday school Genesis 1, the very first verse of the Bible.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth and
then you see subsequent verses on how he did it.
It's just one after another of God said, let there be And then
it became about, it came about verse 3.
God said, let there be light and there was light verse 6.
God, said, let there be an expanse, there was an expanse on
and on, and on and on God said God said God said, so he created
through his word, he spoke creation into existence.
He did not have to work and toil for this to happen.
He didn't even have to speak, but he chose to he created
through speaking it into existence.
Distance through his word. Now, this is what blows my mind
that I still haven't fully comprehended.
When it comes to God's word, John chapter, 1 tells us this in
the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things were made through him
and without him was not anything made that was made.
And then verse 14 says, and the word became flesh and dwelt
among us. And we have seen his glory
glory. As of the only son from the
father full of grace and truth, So the word is a person and that
person is Jesus Christ. He was with God in the
beginning, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, creating
God, creating through the sun, through his holy word.
But what we see in these verses that God is omnipotent, he is
all-powerful He created by just speaking this world into
existence and we've heard this so much, we take it for granted.
When we walk out these doors, we take for granted a tree and how
amazing a tree is or clouds in the sky or the fact that our sky
is blue. We just have grown accustomed to
these things. If you really think of our Sky
could be green, our grass could be blue.
Trees could be upside down where the roots are on top, but God
didn't do it that way. He did it, the way it is.
And we've just grown so accustomed to it.
We walk right by but he spoke these things into existence.
He's that powerful. Have you got any of you guys
ever spoke something into existence?
No, this is how amazing and Majestic God is that he can
create just through his words. It is a supreme display of his
power and his might and his majesty and it's amazing.
We can't fathom it. There's no ends to it.
There's no, there's no Plumbing the depths of God's power and
his amazing ability. So in Verses 4 through 9, we see
God's. Omnipotence is omnipotent now,
verses 10 through 12. We see another reason we should
Worship the Lord. Another one of his character
qualities or his attributes. The Lord is omniscient
omnipotent. And I believe, it's yeah.
But going to be back here so you can spell it.
We just sang about this. And one of our songs earlier God
is omniscient. So, again, You see that word
Omni at the beginning means all or total omniscient means
all-knowing or all-wise. God is all wise and all-knowing.
Look at verses 10 through 12, it says that the Lord brings the
counsel of the nation's to nothing.
He frustrates. The plans of the people's, the
counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart
to all generations. Plans Council.
This is all talking about for us humans, our own ideas, our own
thoughts of what's right and what's wrong and what would be
best and saying that God takes that and he frustrates it, but
God's plans, God's counsel stands forever.
It's perfect. There is no flaw in God's Will
and in God's way, amen. And we see this because he's
omniscient. Now we can see pretty clearly.
If you I think you all would agree with me that we can see
looking at our economy right now not going to talk about politics
but I think we can agree if we look at our economy that the
plans of man will always fail when they are not rooted and
grounded in God's Will and God's word.
Amen. Anytime anytime, if you look
throughout human history at this world and you see great
civilizations, that became Mighty nation's most of the
time. Those were founded in started on
Christianity. All God's will God's word and
then they diverted from that and it all fell apart.
God's plan and God's counsel is the only perfect way because he
is omniscient and we are not. If you look back and verse 5, it
says that he loves righteousness and Justice.
And we know that God is perfect. If there is no flaw in the Lord.
And so he is perfectly righteous and perfectly.
Just so of course, his will. And his plan is going to be
perfect because there is no flaw in him.
Now, we can at times, try to be righteous or try to be just but
we're Sinners. And so, every single thing we do
is marred and stained by that sinful nature that we still
carry. We can never be perfectly just
or perfectly righteous. Although we might try and so our
plans will fail. Our council is, never the wisest
counsel, but God's plan will God's will prevails because he
is omniscient, he is all-knowing.
Owing all-wise. Proverbs 19 verse 21 says that
many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose
of the Lord that will stand. I don't know about you, but
there have been many times in my own life that I've thought a
certain direction was the right way to go.
And I've followed that only to find out later that that was not
what I should have done. I should have sought the Lord
sought his will for my life and followed his path.
Leave it up to me every single time I'm going to mess it up.
God's ways are higher. I can't comprehend the depth of
his wisdom. I don't understand why he does
things the way he does. But I trust him because he's God
and I'm not. And so it does as well.
To remember this and to follow God's path.
Follow his word, follow his will.
If we do, there's a direct result.
Look at verse 12. Blessed is the nation, whose God
is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen, as his Heritage, we
know, as I've already mentioned that when a nation went to,
people will humble themselves before the Lord seek his will
and follow him. That Nation will be blessed.
Now, in this passage, this is a reference to Israel, of course.
Yes, but it just, it doesn't just apply to Israel.
This still applies to us today. It's common sense that that
would make sense that if a nation will follow the lord, it
will be blessed. But we also know that not
everyone who is a descendant of Abraham as a child of Abraham,
amen. It's the children, faith that
are children of Abraham that are children of Israel.
And so we are that we are children of faith.
We share that, that heritage And so, if we will humble ourselves
and follow the lord, we will be blessed.
But ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you that we are in the
minority in our nation anymore as Christians.
And so we have a large task ahead of us to stand firm.
In our faith, stand for our faith, the preach, the gospel
and evangelize everywhere. We go, this isn't just a Sunday
morning lifestyle. We take the gospel into our
workplace, into our home, wherever we go, let me spread
the gospel because we know that God's ways are higher and this
leads to true blessing and true life.
The third reason that we can Worship the Lord that, if that,
we should want to praise God and worship him, is that, the Lord
is omnipresent, Verses 13 through 19.
You see that the Lord is omnipresent.
Look at these verses. The Lord looks down from heaven.
He sees all the children of man from here.
He sits enthroned. He looks out on all the
inhabitants of the earth. He who Fashions?
The hearts of them all, and he observes their deeds.
And then, in verse 18, behold, the eye of the Lord is on those
who fear Him. So, we just see over and over
this idea of the Lord seeing and watching and looking This shows
that God is omnipresent, God is not limited by space and time to
one place. God can be everywhere at the
same time. We know that the Holy Spirit
lives inside all of us, right? But God can be everywhere.
He's, he knows the future. He knows the past, he's not
limited by space and time. Psalm 139 verse 7 says this,
where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I?
Flee from your presence. If I Ascend into heaven, you
were there. If I make my bed and she'll you
were there, if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the
uttermost parts of the sea, even there.
Your hand shall lead me. And your right hand shall hold
me. God is everywhere.
We cannot Escape The Gaze of the Lord.
He discerns. All, he sees all he knows all
Verses 16 and 17 say that the king is not saved by his army.
The warrior not delivered by a strength and that the war horse
is a false hope for salvation, even by its great light, it
cannot rescue. Our hope is not in back then.
And even now our hope is not, in Kings, our hope is not in
Warriors. Our hope is not in war horses.
Is mighty and Majestic, as they may be, our hope is not in
presidents. Our hope is not in armies.
Our hope is not in planes and tanks or any of that.
Our hope is In Christ Alone, Christ, and Christ Alone.
That is where our hope comes from.
That is where our Salvation comes from, and no one else can
offer this. No, King no president, no
Nation, no Army will save you. Christ, Alone can save you and
he sees and discerns. All he is always with us.
Always watching. And this is what's beautiful.
Look at verses 18 and 19. The eye of the Lord is on those
who fear Him on those, who hope in his steadfast love that, he
may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive and
famine. Anytime you see that word that
like like that you could put a so in front of it.
So that the Lord is watching, he's watching those who fear
Him. Now we know the word fear can
mean to be afraid of and absolutely a god, this power
Powerful. And this wise in this
all-knowing, I do. I that does strike a little fear
in my heart as a sinner. I don't want to be under that,
Judgment of that God but fear. Also in this context, means to
Revere to have a reverence and respect for and an all four.
And that's why it tells us to be in all of him, just astonished
it is greatness. God Is Watching.
He is waiting for those who will put their trust and their hope
and their their fear in him so that he can deliver them.
So that he can deliver them. He's not doing this like a
Longshanks Tyrant that just wants to to come down on people
and Rule us with a heavy hand. He's watching so that when we
cast our cares and Our Hope on him, he can save us from our
sins. That should, that should be a
reason for us to praise God. To know that when I don't know
where else to turn. I don't know what to Hope in her
trust when I turned to the Lord. He's there waiting, he's
watching, he's eager to save. To forgive.
He's always there. He knows all he's all-powerful,
he sees all nothing is hidden from his eye.
And so because God is all-powerful, he's omnipotent
because God is all knowing, he's omniscient and because God is
everywhere, and he sees all and discerns, all, he's omnipresent
his counsel never fails, his will is perfect, his way is good
and salvation everlasting life Waits on us.
If we will align ourselves and align our hearts with his.
If we will seek the Lord and seek to live our lives like
Christ, that's what Waits For Us.
Blessing, as we see a nation that fears, the Lord will be
blessed, will be saved when we call on the Lord.
This is what awaits those who trust and hope and God.
And so, for those of us who have done that, we have reason to
Rejoice, we've been saved God's blessed us and that's what this
song is all about. When we remember the goodness of
God and the greatness of God his power.
Our in his mind, and his wisdom, it shouldn't make us fear him.
Like be afraid of him. It should make us excited
because this is our King. This is our Lord.
Not a Longshanks, but Jesus Christ.
Look at verses 20 through 22. Because of these things because
of God's amazing character and attributes.
We wait for the Lord, our soul waits, for the Lord for he is
our help. He is our Shield.
Our heart is glad in him because we trust in him.
In His holy name. let your steadfast love O, Lord be upon
us even as we hope in you we wait we trust and we hope We
pray, we fast. We wait knowing that I don't
understand God's ways all the time but I know for a fact that
he's good but he's wise that he's powerful and so I trust and
I hope and I'll wait and I'll pray and I'm patient I call out
to him. He is the only one worthy of Our
Praise. Amen.
He's the only one worthy of our worship.
We are sinners our Council will fail.
We are not all-powerful, we are not all wise who are not
all-knowing, but God is, and because of this, because of his
amazing character, his majesty and Splendor, we can gladly
submit to that King said that Lord and say I will follow this
King, I will follow this Lord because not only is he amazing,
not only is he powerful but he loves me.
He loves me. I will gladly submit to that.
King gladly follow him to the depths of hell if I have to but
thankfully I don't have to worship team.
You guys can come back up. I'm going to wrap this up.
I want to point out something. that's not even in this song,
but I think we have to mention Psalm 33 paints a really
beautiful picture of God's character that Absol.
Absolutely should elicit. Praise from us.
It's it should cause us. To want to worship him when we
remember all these things. It's so easy to forget, God's
majesty and his power and his wisdom.
So easy to forget. So when we remember these things
and we read a Psalm like this, it should it should make us want
to say, wow, what an amazing God.
We serve hallelujah. Thank you.
Lord, that I get the privilege to worship you.
But perhaps the most amazing attribute or quality that God
shows is not any of these. Perhaps his most amazing.
Attribute, is his great love for us.
Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrates his love for us in
this while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
That is why we trust him. That is why we put our hope and
our faith in him because not only is he a, is he a powerful
wise King? Worthy of adoration?
But even though he is so powerful and wise and worthy of
adoration, he humbled himself and gave his son to be murdered
for us. He's not a Lord and a king that
demands praise and adoration and demands that we be in subjection
to him. He is a king that freely offers
life to all that. Want it a free gift to us.
Calling Christ. Lord is not a burden.
Not like being under the lordship of a Longshanks calling
Christ. Lord is freedom, and it is only
there that we will find true Freedom.
He tells us in Matthew 11:28 through 30, come to me, all you,
who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for.
I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy.
And my burden is light. You guys know that if a yoke is
the wooden part, they would put on the ox, to pull carts and
stuff. And so he's saying, look, my
yoke is easy and my burden is light.
If you're tired, if you're weary come to Christ, he is
all-powerful all-wise all-knowing All-Seeing, but he
humbles himself enough to come live and take on flesh and die
for us. That's a king I can submit to.
That is a king. I will give my life to And
that's what were called to do. This song should make us want to
do that pledge. Our entire life, to Jesus
Christ, to being a follower of Christ giving ourselves to him
fully. So I beg you, I'm pleased with
you this morning if you have not ever done that to do.
So put your trust in your faith and your hope in Christ Pledge,
Your Life to him, be his follower, but understand that,
to do this, you were submitting to his rule to his lordship.
You are no longer king of your own life.
You're gladly submitting to his Rule and reign.
If you have never done this, I beg you to do it.
And if you have Then remember remember who he is, remember his
great attributes, and how powerful and Majestic, he is,
and his love for you and what he did for you already, remember
that and praise him this morning.
Praise him, do that. And one great way that we
remember what the Lord has done for us is through communion
which is also known as the Lord's Supper.
This is a supper we do in honor of our Lord and King I'm going
to pray for us in just a moment. Then Kyle's going to come up and
lead us through communion but I want to encourage you all.
If you're a believer in this place, take this opportunity
during the Lord's Supper to remember is his character and
who he is as God. And remember what he did for you
and then we sing do. What Psalm 33 says in verses 12.
Verses three that first and last word was what?
Shout Shout to the Lord this morning.
Don't whisper it. Don't sing under your breath
because you're afraid somebody besides, he's going to hear you
off-key who cares? Sing to the top of your lungs.
Almost to a god that deserves your worship this morning.
Amen. Pray with me.
Lord, we love you. We praise you.
We thank you. God, for today, we thank you for
your holy word. We thank you most of all for
your character. We thank you for your son.
Jesus. God, we're grateful that you
were a Lord and a king that loves us and that rules the easy
yolk and an easy burden. And God we gladly submit to you
today. I pray for anyone in this place
it is never trusted you that they would do so.
Now I would love you and we praise you in Jesus name.
Amen. I would love you and we praise
you in Jesus name. Amen.